I adopted Sally from a pig sanctuary in the summer of
2003. She had been shuffled around several times in her life and wasn’t
doing well at the sanctuary with all the other piggies. She was shy
and timid and would not push her way in to eat with the other pigs at
dinner time. When I came to visit the sanctuary, I was introduced to
her and I fell in love. We didn’t have any documentation to show
how old she was, but our vet agreed that she was an old girl, probably
10-15 years old, and set in her ways, but I knew she needed to be in
a one pig family.

She became such a big part of our family for the year
we had her! She gained back some weight and finally didn’t have
to fight for her food. Once the weather started heating up in the summer
of 2004 we began to notice that she would be breathing heavy when she
came inside after meal time. She couldn’t tolerate the heat like
she used to.

On July 7, 2004 she got in her pool to cool off and wouldn’t
get out. My 69-year-old mother was “pig-sitting” and called
me on my cell phone to tell me something was wrong and she couldn’t
lift Sally out of her pool. She was panting and wasn’t responding.
I rushed home as fast as I could, but it was too late. She passed away
in my mothers arms. The vet told me there was nothing I could have done
to save her if I had gotten home sooner, but I still wonder if I should
have done something different. She had only been out for her usual dinner
and potty time and it was 8:30 at night when she passed. I miss her
so much and I only hope that during her last year on Earth she felt
happy and loved.